{"schema":"https://ver.cy/schemas/card/1.0.0","id":"vr.tr.pleasure","code":"thing-q208195","url":"https://ver.cy/models/thing/q208195/","name":"pleasure","alternateNames":["sexual pleasure","Funemployment","Pleasure of Paradise in Islam","bibliosmia","keyif","guilty pleasure"],"kind":"thing","status":"published","version":"0.1.0-research.1","language":"en","classifiers":{"family":"Thing Registry","category":"Activities and processes","entryKind":"thing","plane":"ACT","domain":["ACT.ACT"],"industry":[],"navPath":"","tags":[],"facets":{}},"whatItIs":"Pleasure is a positively valenced affective state in which an organism registers a stimulus, activity, or imagined outcome as intrinsically liked or rewarding, distinct from the motivational drive to obtain it and from longer-horizon evaluations of well-being.","purpose":"Enable an AI agent to recognise reported or inferred pleasure, assess its qualities and context, and decide whether and how to support it without confusing pleasant experience with desire, benefit or consent.","scope":{"in":["Actual pleasure episodes and their distinction from anticipated or remembered pleasure","The experiencer's account of what feels pleasant and in what way","Pleasure intensity, duration, fluctuation and coexistence with unpleasant experience","Objects, activities and circumstances associated with pleasure","Relationships between experienced pleasure, wanting, repetition and willingness to continue","Preferences and boundaries governing attempts to sustain, change or end pleasure"],"out":["Happiness, wellbeing and flourishing assessed across a life or extended period","Desire, motivation and goal pursuit without an identified pleasant experience","Reward delivery, reinforcement and task success independent of experienced pleasure","Consent, decision-making capacity and interpersonal permissions as independently governed matters","Medical diagnosis and treatment of changes in the capacity to experience pleasure","The intrinsic properties of pleasurable objects, substances or activities"],"boundaries":[]},"distinguishingFeatures":["An attribution of pleasure identifies whose experience feels pleasant; an attractive object or delivered reward alone does not establish pleasure.","Wanting something and enjoying it are recorded separately: a request, pursuit or repeated choice does not by itself establish enjoyment.","Expected, remembered and currently experienced pleasure have distinct statuses; a prediction or recollection is not treated as a present episode.","Relief counts as pleasure only where pleasant experience is also reported or supported; reduced discomfort alone is insufficient.","Pleasure does not establish overall benefit or permission to continue; pleasant experience, adverse consequences and consent require separate judgments."],"structure":{"bundles":[{"id":"attributing-pleasure","name":"Attributing pleasure","description":"Establishes whose pleasure is being described and what supports the attribution.","layers":[{"id":"experiencer-and-perspective","name":"Experiencer and perspective","description":"Locates the experience and the perspective from which it is described.","findings":[{"id":"owned-experience","name":"Owned experience","description":"Record the experiencer separately from the person or system making the attribution.","questions":[{"text":"Whose experience is described as pleasant, and who is making that description?","id":"owned-experience-q01","kind":"definition"},{"text":"Is this the experiencer's own account, an observer's interpretation or an attribution whose origin is unknown?","id":"owned-experience-q02","kind":"provenance"}]}]},{"id":"evidence-and-correction","name":"Evidence and correction","description":"Keeps evidence of pleasure separate from confidence in its interpretation.","findings":[{"id":"supported-attribution","name":"Supported attribution","description":"Retain the evidence, timing and unresolved disagreements behind a pleasure attribution.","questions":[{"text":"What report or observation supports pleasure, and how close was it in time to the experience?","id":"supported-attribution-q01","kind":"provenance"},{"text":"Could the observed expression or behaviour indicate politeness, compliance or something other than enjoyment?","id":"supported-attribution-q02","kind":"boundary"},{"text":"How can the experiencer correct or reject this attribution?","id":"supported-attribution-q03","kind":"action"}]}]}]},{"id":"felt-character","name":"Felt character","description":"Describes what is pleasant about the experience, how strongly and alongside what other feelings.","layers":[{"id":"quality-and-intensity","name":"Quality and intensity","description":"Captures the experiencer's vocabulary and a situated assessment of pleasantness.","findings":[{"id":"pleasantness-description","name":"Pleasantness description","description":"Describe the pleasant quality and its degree without imposing a universal scale or fixed taxonomy.","questions":[{"text":"What words does the experiencer use for the pleasant aspect of this experience?","id":"pleasantness-description-q01","kind":"definition"},{"text":"How intense is the pleasantness on a scale whose anchors the experiencer understands?","id":"pleasantness-description-q02","kind":"measurement"},{"text":"Does the assessment concern a moment, the peak or the episode as a whole?","id":"pleasantness-description-q03","kind":"boundary"}]}]},{"id":"mixed-feelings-and-relief","name":"Mixed feelings and relief","description":"Distinguishes pleasantness from the absence of discomfort and preserves concurrent unpleasantness.","findings":[{"id":"pleasure-with-other-feelings","name":"Pleasure with other feelings","description":"Record pleasant and unpleasant aspects separately, including whether relief itself feels pleasant.","questions":[{"text":"Is there an identifiable pleasant feeling, a reduction in discomfort or both?","id":"pleasure-with-other-feelings-q01","kind":"boundary"},{"text":"What unpleasant feelings, if any, coexist with the pleasure?","id":"pleasure-with-other-feelings-q02","kind":"measurement"}]}]}]},{"id":"episode-and-conditions","name":"Episode and conditions","description":"Places pleasure in time and records what it concerns and under which circumstances it occurs.","layers":[{"id":"temporal-identity","name":"Temporal identity","description":"Identifies the episode and separates its occurrence from predictions and recollections.","findings":[{"id":"episode-course","name":"Episode course","description":"Record the episode's boundaries, changes and experiential status, allowing uncertainty about timing.","questions":[{"text":"Is the pleasure happening now, being remembered or being anticipated?","id":"episode-course-q01","kind":"definition"},{"text":"When did the pleasant experience begin, how has it changed and has it ended?","id":"episode-course-q02","kind":"measurement"},{"text":"What makes these moments one episode rather than several separate pleasures?","id":"episode-course-q03","kind":"boundary"}]}]},{"id":"objects-and-eliciting-context","name":"Objects and eliciting context","description":"Separates what is enjoyed from candidate causes and accompanying circumstances.","findings":[{"id":"situated-enjoyment","name":"Situated enjoyment","description":"Record the enjoyed object or activity, relevant circumstances and evidence for any proposed eliciting condition.","questions":[{"text":"What, if anything, is the pleasure directed toward or experienced during?","id":"situated-enjoyment-q01","kind":"definition"},{"text":"Which circumstances does the experiencer identify as contributing to the pleasure?","id":"situated-enjoyment-q02","kind":"provenance"},{"text":"What supports treating a circumstance as a contributor rather than something that merely coincided with pleasure?","id":"situated-enjoyment-q03","kind":"boundary"}]}]}]},{"id":"wanting-and-repetition","name":"Wanting and repetition","description":"Relates experienced pleasure to desire, expectations and responses to repeated exposure.","layers":[{"id":"liking-and-wanting","name":"Liking and wanting","description":"Records enjoyment separately from the desire to obtain or continue its associated activity.","findings":[{"id":"enjoyment-desire-relation","name":"Enjoyment and desire relation","description":"Preserve agreement or divergence between pleasant experience and expressed desire.","questions":[{"text":"How pleasant is the experience, and does the experiencer want it to continue?","id":"enjoyment-desire-relation-q01","kind":"measurement"},{"text":"Is pursuit or repeated choice being used as evidence of pleasure without an account of enjoyment?","id":"enjoyment-desire-relation-q02","kind":"boundary"}]}]},{"id":"expectation-and-repeat-experience","name":"Expectation and repeat experience","description":"Compares expected pleasure with subsequent reports and tracks changes across comparable occasions.","findings":[{"id":"pleasure-across-occasions","name":"Pleasure across occasions","description":"Record whether pleasure met expectations and whether repetition changed enjoyment, without assuming a particular trajectory.","questions":[{"text":"How did the reported pleasure compare with what the experiencer expected?","id":"pleasure-across-occasions-q01","kind":"measurement"},{"text":"Across repeated occasions, did enjoyment increase, decrease, remain similar or vary with circumstances?","id":"pleasure-across-occasions-q02","kind":"measurement"},{"text":"Are the occasions and assessment methods similar enough to support that comparison?","id":"pleasure-across-occasions-q03","kind":"boundary"}]}]}]},{"id":"supporting-pleasure","name":"Supporting pleasure","description":"Connects the experience to optional actions, explicit preferences and separately assessed consequences.","layers":[{"id":"preferred-continuation","name":"Preferred continuation","description":"Establishes what the experiencer wants to happen next and links to applicable permissions.","findings":[{"id":"continuation-boundaries","name":"Continuation boundaries","description":"Record requests to sustain, change, pause or end the associated activity independently of pleasure intensity.","questions":[{"text":"Does the experiencer prefer continuation, modification, a pause or an end?","id":"continuation-boundaries-q01","kind":"action"},{"text":"What explicit permission and limits govern a proposed action, independently of apparent enjoyment?","id":"continuation-boundaries-q02","kind":"boundary"},{"text":"What signal or request should cause the agent to pause or stop?","id":"continuation-boundaries-q03","kind":"action"}]}]},{"id":"consequences-and-tradeoffs","name":"Consequences and tradeoffs","description":"Links pleasure to relevant consequences and goals without absorbing their assessment into pleasantness.","findings":[{"id":"pleasure-in-decision-context","name":"Pleasure in decision context","description":"Retain the experiencer's priorities and links to evidence about consequences when deciding whether to offer more of an experience.","questions":[{"text":"What other goals, commitments or consequences does the experiencer want considered alongside this pleasure?","id":"pleasure-in-decision-context-q01","kind":"action"},{"text":"Which claimed benefits or costs have independent evidence, and which remain expectations?","id":"pleasure-in-decision-context-q02","kind":"provenance"},{"text":"What optional change could support the desired pleasant quality while respecting the stated limits?","id":"pleasure-in-decision-context-q03","kind":"action"}]}]}]},{"id":"evidence-and-external-alignment","name":"Evidence and external alignment","description":"What the world already says about this thing, gathered so the model can be checked against it.","layers":[{"id":"reported-evidence","name":"Reported evidence","description":"Findings from the breadth pass, kept separate from the structural claims.","findings":[{"id":"evidence-kinds","name":"Kinds and varieties","description":"Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.","questions":[{"text":"Which of these kinds and varieties hold for the sense of pleasure this model covers, and on what evidence?","id":"evidence-kinds-q01","kind":"provenance"}]},{"id":"evidence-identifiers","name":"Identifiers and schemes","description":"Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.","questions":[{"text":"Which of these identifiers and schemes hold for the sense of pleasure this model covers, and on what evidence?","id":"evidence-identifiers-q01","kind":"provenance"}]},{"id":"evidence-standards-and-regulation","name":"Standards and regulation","description":"Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.","questions":[{"text":"Which of these standards and regulation hold for the sense of pleasure this model covers, and on what evidence?","id":"evidence-standards-and-regulation-q01","kind":"provenance"}]},{"id":"evidence-real-world-use","name":"Real-world use","description":"Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.","questions":[{"text":"Which of these real-world use hold for the sense of pleasure this model covers, and on what evidence?","id":"evidence-real-world-use-q01","kind":"provenance"}]},{"id":"evidence-measurements","name":"Typical measurements","description":"Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.","questions":[{"text":"Which of these typical measurements hold for the sense of pleasure this model covers, and on what evidence?","id":"evidence-measurements-q01","kind":"provenance"}]},{"id":"evidence-failure-modes-and-hazards","name":"Failure modes and hazards","description":"Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.","questions":[{"text":"Which of these failure modes and hazards hold for the sense of pleasure this model covers, and on what evidence?","id":"evidence-failure-modes-and-hazards-q01","kind":"provenance"}]},{"id":"evidence-regional-variation","name":"Regional variation","description":"Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.","questions":[{"text":"Which of these regional variation hold for the sense of pleasure this model covers, and on what evidence?","id":"evidence-regional-variation-q01","kind":"provenance"}]},{"id":"evidence-neighbours","name":"Neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart","description":"Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.","questions":[{"text":"Which of these neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart hold for the sense of pleasure this model covers, and on what evidence?","id":"evidence-neighbours-q01","kind":"provenance"}]}]}]}]},"agentConduct":{"may":["Explain what research says about pleasure and reward in plain terms.","Help a user plan activities they say they enjoy."],"mustNot":["Design products or messages to exploit pleasure responses so people use them compulsively.","Shame people for what they enjoy when it harms no one.","Present pleasure as a measure of moral worth or the reverse.","Infer a person's private pleasures from their data without consent."],"requiresHuman":["Using pleasure-based incentives in services for children or vulnerable people."]},"ethics":{"considerations":["Products engineered around reward can drive addiction.","Loss of pleasure can signal depression that needs care."],"affectedParties":["Users of engagement-driven services","People with addiction","Children"]},"owners":{"steward":"Nobody: a feeling belongs to the person who has it.","roles":[],"masterSystems":[]},"relations":[{"target":"Q8","type":"parent","note":"registry parent class"}],"interaction":{"identity":{"applicability":"required","items":["Vercy registry: vr.tr.pleasure","Wikidata: Q208195 (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q208195)"]},"properties":{"applicability":"not-applicable","items":["Experiencer: The individual to whom the pleasant experience is attributed","Experiential status: Currently experienced | remembered | anticipated | hypothetical | unclear","Attribution basis: Contemporaneous self-report | retrospective self-report | observed expression or behaviour | other indirect evidence | unknown","Pleasantness intensity: Experiencer-selected verbal or numerical scale, with anchors and assessment time recorded; unknown permitted","Pleasure quality: Experiencer's descriptors, such as soothing, exhilarating, savoury, amusing or tender; multiple descriptors permitted","Temporal course: Emerging | steady | increasing | decreasing | intermittent | ended | unclear, with timing where available","Associated object or activity: What the pleasure concerns or accompanies; causal role recorded as reported, supported or unresolved","Concurrent unpleasantness: Reported absent | reported present with description | uncertain | not assessed","Desire for continuation: Continue | modify | pause | end | ambivalent | unknown"]},"recognition":{"applicability":"not-applicable","items":[]},"capabilities":{"applicability":"required","items":["Elicit and record how an experiencer describes a pleasant episode using their preferred terms and scale.","Distinguish reported enjoyment from expectations, memories and indirect behavioural interpretations.","Compare episodes for the same experiencer while retaining differences in context and measurement.","Identify candidate conditions for a preferred experience while marking causal uncertainty.","Offer, modify, pause or end an optional activity according to explicit preferences and applicable permissions.","Revise an attribution when the experiencer corrects it or new evidence conflicts with it."]},"hazards":{"applicability":"required","items":["Compulsive use of products tuned to reward.","Missed signs of depression when loss of pleasure is dismissed."]},"interfaces":{"applicability":"not-applicable","items":[]},"context":{"applicability":"required","items":["Pleasure is encountered in experiences such as eating, social contact, play, sensory enjoyment and absorbing activities.","It is studied in psychology, neuroscience and animal welfare to understand positive experience and distinguish enjoyment from motivation.","Reports or behavioral evidence of pleasure can inform supportive choices but do not independently establish benefit or consent."]}},"sources":[{"title":"Hedonism","url":"https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hedonism/","note":"Philosophical definition of pleasure as a positively valenced experience; higher/lower and sensory/attitudinal distinctions; role in welfare theories."},{"title":"Pleasure","url":"https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pleasure/","note":"Specialist account of pleasure as a distinctive phenomenal character versus attitudinal theories; kinds and neighbours (pain, desire, happiness)."},{"title":"Pleasure Systems in the Brain","url":"https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(15)00197-7","note":"Neuroscience of liking versus wanting; hedonic hotspots; measurements and failure modes including anhedonia and addiction."},{"title":"ICD-11: Anhedonia and related affective constructs in mood and psychotic disorders","url":"https://icd.who.int/","note":"Clinical operationalisation of reduced capacity for pleasure; diagnostic neighbour of depression and schizophrenia."},{"title":"Wikidata item Q208195: pleasure","url":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q208195","note":"identity and sense of the item"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Pleasure","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasure","note":"general description of the item"}],"openQuestions":["Should the registry entry include enduring dispositions to enjoy things, or only episodes and their anticipated or remembered representations?","Which distinctions among sensory, social, intellectual and other pleasure qualities are useful across contexts without imposing a culturally narrow taxonomy?","What evidence standards should govern pleasure attributions when an experiencer cannot provide a verbal self-report?","Under what conditions can pleasure ratings be compared across episodes, individuals or different reporting scales?","Does the surrounding Vercy catalogue already assign pleasure or some of these responsibilities to an existing model of affect, enjoyment, reward or wellbeing?"],"resources":{"spec":"/models/things/publications/thing-q208195/spec.json"},"provenance":{"origin":"thing registry research (pass 2)","builtFrom":["models/things/publications/thing-q208195/spec.json"],"providers":["Codex","Grok"],"researchStatus":"unreviewed","generatedAt":"2026-09-07T11:27:28Z","builder":"tools/build_cards.py@1.0.0"},"completeness":{"sections":{"classifiers":"filled","whatItIs":"filled","purpose":"filled","distinguishingFeatures":"filled","structure":"filled","agentConduct":"filled","ethics":"filled","owners":"filled","relations":"filled","interaction.identity":"filled","interaction.properties":"not-applicable","interaction.recognition":"not-applicable","interaction.capabilities":"filled","interaction.hazards":"filled","interaction.interfaces":"not-applicable","interaction.context":"filled","sources":"filled"},"notes":{"_gate":"Published through the thing publication gate 1.0 on 2026-10-07T10:10:28+00:00: completeness 1.00; sense: Wikidata description; 5 live sources; review by codex: pass","interaction.properties":"Plane ACT: no invented physical properties.","interaction.interfaces":"No generally applicable standard, law or official classification governs pleasure itself as a subjective mental state.","interaction.recognition":"Pleasure cannot be visually identified directly because expressions and behavior are context-dependent evidence rather than the experience itself."},"score":1.0}}